Monthly Archives: August 2025

Progress on updating my Homestuck posts, continued

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The latest shitstorm of drama involving Andrew Hussie (not gonna go into it here) has made me realize, I still need to fix a bunch of shit in my old Homestuck posts and these articles aren’t going to fix themselves. So I will continue from this earlier post and write a progress log, mostly just for myself.

By the way, Andrew Hussie is a complete and utter asshole. I knew this already, since 2020 if not earlier, but it still shocks me how much of a dick he is to fans. Especially the ones who made it possible to read his comic after the website fucking broke!

Changelog:

  • August 12, 2025: Updated the images for posts 34 to 36. I’m making progress, people.
  • August 13, 2025: Updated posts 37 to 38. I should say the pesterlog in part 37 where Tavros reveals he killed Jade’s grandpa is one of my favorite scenes in Homestuck because it’s peak cringe comedy and Jade handles the whole thing like a champ. Especially the part where Tavros starts fucking hitting on her. Now with all that said, developing feelings for someone you met online after just a day is a real thing that happens. That doesn’t make Tavros’s confession any less embarrassing.
  • August 14, 2025: Updated posts 39 to 40. “The Miracle of a New Beginning” is such a banger post title.
  • August 15, 2025: Updated posts 41 to 43. Karkat imagining Jade’s selfcest is just the most Karkat thing, isn’t it?
  • August 16, 2025: Updated post 44. Fuck, it’s annoying to have to keep fixing the GIFs.
  • August 18, 2025: Updated posts 45 to 46. In part 45 (released a few days before Act 7) you can see me holding out hope for the final update being something it simply wasn’t. Since then, I’ve come around on Act 7. And part 46 is a tipping point for my blog, I feel. My analysis of John and Vriska’s conversation was more intensive and earnest than any till this point. I was quite self aware with the line, “I’ll probably look back on THESE posts and think they could’ve been a lot better, but for now, as far as I’m concerned they are supreme masterpieces that I am totally in love with.”
  • August 20, 2025: Updated posts 47 to 48. Holy shit, this is tedious.
  • August 22, 2025: Updated posts 49 to 50. “Hey, didn’t this comic have something to do with a clown killing people? I really can’t remember with all of John’s gushing about Liv Tyler and how gorgeous she is.” is a banger quote.
  • September 5, 2025: Updated posts 51 to 53. Now I’ve begun with the Doc Scratch intermission, my favorite part of Homestuck! Some long-ass posts where I need to fix the images coming right up.
  • September 7, 2025: Updated posts 54 to 55. These are some of my best Homestuck posts before the two-year hiatus, even though I wrote them when I was 17.
  • September 8, 2025: Updated posts 56 to 58. Doc Scratch’s ancestor exposition (in part 58) is one of my favorite parts of Homestuck to reread, whereas Mindfang’s exposition is one of my least favorite parts to reread.
  • September 9, 2025: Updated post 59, the Cascade post. That was a real pain in the ass, but hey, I got to rewatch Cascade for fun. I didn’t need to screenshot the flash all over again, I just once more used the readmspa.org storyboard.
  • September 15, 2025: Updated posts 60 to 61. Fuck, Act 6 Act 1 is fucking boring and I wrote the most pointless walls of text about it. You know how Caliborn insists Dirk is the only good alpha kid? I’m sort of that way with Roxy now. She’s fucking awesome.

Cookie Fonster Picks Apart Eurovision 1971 Again: A Duet That Slowly Won Me Over

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Intro Post

< 1970 Review | 1971 Review | 1972 Review >

Introduction

There are some Eurovision years I’m passionate about and am looking forward to reviewing again. But before I reach them, I need to get through some of the contest’s dullest years, such as Eurovision 1971. I remember it not being a terrible year, just one with no songs I’m passionate about. This year was the first of seven to be hosted in Ireland; it took place at the Gaitey Theatre and was hosted by Bernadette Ní Ghallchóir. This production was a huge undertaking for RTÉ at the time, but the Irish have always known how to put on a good Eurovision show.

All the countries that skipped 1969 or 1970—Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden—returned this year, and the island country of Malta made their debut, though they weren’t successful in their first few years. This made for a total of 18 participating countries. The winner was Monaco for the first and only time, then in second place came Spain and Germany in third. The newcomer Malta landed at the bottom both this year and the next year, which discouraged them from further participation for the next two decades.

I’ll paste my description of the voting system from round 1: This contest completely redid the voting system, presumably to appease the countries that were mad about the four-way tie two years ago. This time, every country had a pair of jury members (older and younger than 25 years respectively), who each gave songs 1 to 5 points, and the points were all added up so that every country got no less than 34 points. I think that’s a cumbersome system with the obvious hole that a country could vote others low so that they’d comparatively score higher, but somehow it was in place for three years in a row. Plus, rating anything numerically is dumb because number ratings mean different things to different people. I’m also not a fan of this voting system because it means far fewer juries decide how many points each song gets, but I get why it was done: to make the voting more transparent and assuage the unhappy countries. It was temporary anyway.

The show opens with an opening film of a man riding a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Ireland and welcoming the guests to the Gaitey Theatre. It’s a tiny venue with a capacity of only 1145 seats, which I suppose was the best Ireland had at the time. Then the presenter introduces the show in Irish, French, and English, and the songs kick off. I love the pattern of the hosts introducing the show in Irish each time the show came to Ireland, and I hope it continues should Ireland win again. When speaking English, Bernadette sounded like she was trying to hide her Irish accent, but it slipped through a fair amount anyway. This year had postcards similar to last year: once more tours of each participating country. This time, the producers didn’t cheat and film four different postcards in Paris.

Last time I said I watched the contest with Austrian commentary, but it seems in retrospect it was a mix of Austrian and German. The YouTube upload I used this time is listed as having entirely German commentary, and I’ll trust that.

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